An Agent for Phoebe

by Nerys Leigh

  She picked up her hairbrush from the chest of drawers. “Of course not. You’re a man.” She slid the brush through her hair. “Although maybe you should be afraid, what with your irresistible intelligence and manliness. My self-control might fail at any moment. What would you do then?”

  ‘Be grateful’ was the first reply that popped into his head. Thankfully, he had the presence of mind not to say it. “I’d think of something.”

  Having brushed out her hair, she proceeded to braid it. He tried not to stare, which wasn’t easy when all he could think of was running his fingers through it.

  He raised the book again and attempted to concentrate enough to read.

  “Mr. Hays?”

  Startled, he looked up.

  She was standing beside the bed, looking at him. “Did you hear what I said?”

  She’d said something? “Um…” His eyes lowered to the book. “Sorry. I’ve just got to an exciting part.”

  He waggled it a little, to emphasize the lie. In truth, he had no idea where he was.

  “Well, would you mind taking your book outside the room so I can change into my nightclothes?”

  “Oh. Right. Sure.” He swiveled his legs off the bed and stood. “Just let me know when you’re ready.”

  He left the room gratefully, slumping against the wall when he got into the hallway and rubbing his jaw.

  What was wrong with him? It was only hair. Just about everyone in the world had hair.

  It shouldn’t make any difference that this particular hair was Phoebe’s.

  Chapter Eight

  Phoebe drew in a deep breath and let it out in a contented sigh. She couldn’t ever remember waking up feeling so good. She was warm and comfortable and well-rested. She could have stayed in bed for the whole day.

  Smiling, she opened her eyes.

  And gasped.

  Jonah’s face was barely inches from hers, his eyes closed and his breathing deep and regular. No wonder she was so warm. They were practically on top of each other.

  So much for the bolster she’d made to keep them apart. It seemed nothing less than a brick wall would stop him from invading her side of the bed.

  She opened her mouth to wake him so she could point this out.

  And then she noticed something against her back.

  Slowly, she slid one hand behind her and prodded at whatever was back there. To her horror, it was the bolster.

  He wasn’t on her side of the bed, she was on his.

  She pulled her hand back carefully, so as not to disturb him. Was there any chance she could creep back onto her side without him waking? She suspected not, but she had to try. There were no words to describe how much she didn’t want him to know she was on his side.

  Tensing her muscles, she began to inch backwards.

  Jonah’s eyes sprang open, widening when he saw her. And then he smiled.

  She stifled a groan.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  Was there any way she could get out of this with her dignity intact? “Good morning.”

  “Sleep well?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He raised his head a little and made a show of looking over her shoulder. “Isn’t that the bolster you made to keep us apart?”

  She swallowed. “Maybe.”

  “Hmm.” He lowered his head back to the pillow. “You appear to be on my side of the bed.”

  “I don’t know how that happened. It wasn’t intentional, I assure you.”

  “Hmm,” he said again. “So I’m thinking that yesterday morning…”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “All right, but we both know.”

  She wanted to smile. Why in the world did she want to smile? “A gentleman wouldn’t point that out.”

  “Guess I’m not a gentleman then.”

  “At least we can agree on that.”

  He continued to smile and she suddenly realized she hadn’t moved away from him. She refused to entertain the idea that she didn’t want to.

  Being very careful to not touch him, she tried to move backwards. Sadly, the bolster was in the way.

  “Would you like me to give you some room?” he asked, still smiling.

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  His grin remaining firmly in place, he shuffled backwards.

  And plummeted off the edge of the bed.

  It seemed neither of them had realized just how far onto his side she was.

  She leaned forward to look at him where he lay on the floor. “Are you all right?”

  He rolled onto his back with a groan. His smile was gone. “Just fine.”

  Not erupting into giggles took a heroic effort on her part. “Thank you for moving.”

  He winced as he sat up. “My pleasure.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The first thing they did after breakfast was go to the post office, which doubled as the telegraph office. Jonah wanted to find out if Ralph Baker had sent any reports to his boss about his audit of the mine before his disappearance, so he sent a telegram to Pearl requesting the information as soon as possible.

  “She’ll reply today,” he told Phoebe as they left the office. “She’s incredibly efficient. We’d all be lost without her, especially while Marianne is away.”

  An idea came to her. “Let’s hire James to check for a reply every half hour. That way we’ll know as soon as one comes in.”

  Jonah’s shoulders slumped. “Must we?”

  They found James where he’d been the day before.

  He jumped up from where he’d been playing some kind of game involving pebbles with two of the other boys and jogged over to them. “Good morning. Got anything else you need to know? I see just about everything that goes on in this town.”

  “In that case, I don’t suppose you know where Ralph Baker is?” Jonah asked.

  “That’s that fellow who disappeared, right?” At their expressions of surprise, he grinned. “Told you I know things. I know the marshal sent out lots of men to look for him and they didn’t find anything. But I don’t know where he is.”

  “Did you see him before he disappeared?” Phoebe asked.

  “Once or twice, just around. He was only here a few days.”

  “Do you know if he had any fights with anyone?” Jonah said. “Or if anyone didn’t like him for any reason?”

  “I never saw anything like that, no.”

  It was probably too much to hope it would be that easy.

  “Did you ever see him go into a saloon?” she asked.

  “No, but I don’t think he liked them.”

  This was interesting. “Why not?”

  “I saw him walk past one once, and when a man walked out in front of him, drunk, Mr. Baker made this face.” He scrunched his nose “And then he crossed the road.”

  She glanced at Jonah and he nodded. That was very interesting.

  “Thank you, that’s helpful,” she said. “Would you check at the post office every half hour for a message for us? We’re Mr. and Mrs.…”

  “Hays, from the Pinkerton agency,” James finished for her. “Told you, I know things.”

  She smiled. “Yes, you did. We’ll give you twenty cents.”

  “Fifty,” he said immediately.

  She laughed. “You’re learning. We’ll be…” She looked at Jonah, suddenly realizing she had no idea what they were going to do next.

  “You can find us at the Bowen boarding house,” he said. He tossed him a quarter. “That’s for the information. You’ll get another fifty when the telegram comes in.

  James gave them a sloppy salute and smiled. “Yes, sir. And ma’am.”

  “What are we going to do back at the boarding house?” Phoebe asked as they walked away. The only thing she could think of was asking the Bowens about Mr. Baker. “I thought you didn’t want to tell them who we are yet.”

  Jonah glanced back at James. “If he knows who we are, the rest of the town probably does too. I don’t think it matters now. We migh
t as well do this while we’re waiting for Pearl’s reply.”

  ~ ~ ~

  When they returned to the boarding house, Mrs. Bowen was in the kitchen. There was no sign of Mr. Bowen.

  “Is your husband around, Mrs. Bowen?” Jonah asked as he and Phoebe walked in.

  Mrs. Bowen looked up from the huge lump of dough she was kneading on the table. “He went to Snell’s, the general store, to pick up a new stove he ordered in from Denver.” She smiled. “He’s been promising me that stove for over a year. Finally got some extra money to buy it for me.”

  The mention of money pricked Jonah’s suspicions. It could have been perfectly innocent, but as he’d told Phoebe, everything was a clue until it wasn’t. “Maybe you could help us then, ma’am.”

  She resumed her kneading. “I’ll surely try, if I can.”

  “The truth is, my wife and I are from the Pinkerton Detective Agency.”

  Her hands continued to work the dough. “Are you? Goodness.” Despite her words, she didn’t seem surprised.

  “We’re here investigating the disappearance of Mr. Ralph Baker. I understand he stayed here.”

  “He did. In the room next to yours, in fact. It’s such a mystery what happened to him. One day he just simply didn’t return. Terrible business.” The speed with which her hands pressed into the dough increased, just a little.

  “We were wondering if you still have his personal effects. We’d like to take a look at them.”

  Her hands paused, just for a moment, before resuming their work. “I’m afraid I don’t know what happened to them. My husband dealt with all that. You can ask him when he gets back.”

  “Ask me what?”

  Jonah looked round at Mr. Bowen standing in the doorway. How long had he been listening?

  “Mr. and Mrs. Hays were asking about Ralph Baker,” Mrs. Bowen said. “They’re investigating his disappearance.”

  “We’d like to see anything he left behind,” Phoebe said, “in case there’s any clue as to what happened to him.”

  Mr. Bowen’s smile seemed a little forced. “You’re welcome to look, but there’s nothing there. Just some clothing and personal things.”

  They followed him into a storage room adjoining the kitchen and he took a hemp sack from a shelf.

  “I was holding onto these in case any of his family arrived to claim them.”

  Phoebe opened the sack and removed various items of clothing, some personal items, a small selection of books, and a pair of shoes, arraying them on a table in the center of the room.

  Jonah flipped through each of the books but found nothing out of the ordinary. Mr. Bowen was telling the truth, there was nothing that gave any hint of what might have happened to him.

  “Where are his notes?” Phoebe asked. “Did he have any ledgers with him?”

  Mr. Bowen’s eyes darted to the door for a split second. It could have been nothing. Or it could have been an involuntary reaction that suggested he wanted to escape.

  “His what?”

  “Ledgers, notes, the things he used for his work,” she replied. “Where are they?”

  Mr. Bowen looked at the pile of clothing. “I-I don’t know.”

  He was lying, that much was clear. He was astoundingly bad at it.

  Jonah edged to the door, blocking any escape. Not that he thought Mr. Bowen would run, but the psychological impact of being trapped would increase the pressure on him to tell the truth.

  He lowered his voice, just enough to sound a little menacing. “What happened to him, Mr. Bowen?”

  The other man glanced around him and backed up a couple of steps. “How would I know?”

  “Because you look guiltier than a judge in a brothel,” Phoebe said.

  Jonah pressed his lips together to keep himself from laughing. He was trying to look threatening, after all.

  Mr. Bowen’s back hit the wall. “I didn’t do anything to him, I swear.”

  Jonah took a step in his direction. “But you know something.”

  His throat bobbed. “They just took a few books and such, that’s all.”

  Now they were getting somewhere.

  “Who took them?” Phoebe asked.

  “I don’t know who they were. The night after he disappeared, three men turned up here, wanting to see his things. They told me if I didn’t let them, they’d hurt me and my wife. I was only trying to keep us safe, I swear.”

  “What exactly did they take?” Jonah asked.

  “Just the ledgers and papers, like you said. And they told me not to tell anyone, or they’d be back.”

  “Do you know what was in the ledgers?”

  Mr. Bowen shook his head.

  “What did these men look like?” Phoebe asked.

  He looked up at the ceiling as he thought. “Twenties or thirties, unkempt-looking. Two had dark hair, the third fair. All of them had beards that looked like they didn’t get trimmed too often. The fair one had a scar on his left cheek. One of the others walked with a slight limp.”

  It wasn’t a very detailed description, but it would help if Jonah and Phoebe ran into the men. And he suspected they would, at some point.

  “Thank you, Mr. Bowen.”

  He licked his lips. “Are you going to tell the marshal?”

  Jonah thought about that. He could, but what would be the point? Mr. and Mrs. Bowen didn’t deserve to go to jail for being afraid. “No. But if you have any more contact with those men, or you think of anything that could help us find Mr. Baker, you tell us immediately.”

  Mr. Bowen nodded emphatically. “I surely will, you have my word.”

  Jonah turned to go, then stopped. “By the way, how much did they pay you to keep quiet?”

  It was a hunch, but he knew he was right when Mr. Bowen’s face blanched.

  “I… uh…”

  Jonah raised one eyebrow. It was enough.

  Mr. Bowen’s shoulders slumped. “Are you going to tell the marshal now?”

  “No. But I reckon the church would appreciate a donation for the poor of anything you have left after whatever you paid for that new stove, don’t you?”

  He sighed. “Yes, sir.”

  Phoebe gave Jonah a look that he could have mistaken for admiration, if he didn’t know better.

  Mrs. Bowen watched them emerge from the storeroom, the dough abandoned. “We meant no harm.”

  “I know,” Jonah replied. “That’s why I’m not telling the marshal.”

  “That was a nice thing you did,” Phoebe said as they made their way to their room.

  He shrugged and tried to ignore the warm feeling her praise gave him.

  “What are we going to do now?” she asked.

  “We’re going to wait for James to bring us Pearl’s reply. And then we’re going back to the Deep Rift mine.”

  Chapter Nine

  They’d been back in their room barely an hour when a knock came at their door. Mr. Bowen was in the hallway when Jonah answered it.

  He focused on a spot just over Jonah’s left shoulder, seeming to not want to meet his eyes. “Young James here has a message for you. I told him I’d deliver it, but he insisted on giving it to you himself.”

  He glanced to his left and Jonah peered around the doorframe to see James slouching against the wall.

  The boy grinned. “I take pride in my work. When I’m hired to do something, I do it properly.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bowen,” Jonah said. “I’ll take it from here.”

  Mr. Bowen nodded, threw a warning look at James, and walked away.

  James followed Jonah into the room and tipped his cap to Phoebe where she sat at the table. “Mrs. Hays. That telegram came. I brought it up here soon as I got it.” He dug in his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to Jonah. “Who’s Mr. Layton?”

  Jonah paused in the process of opening it. “You read it?”

  “You didn’t tell me not to.”

  Phoebe smiled. “He’s got you there.”

 
“Hm.” Jonah opened the paper and read it out loud, since James already knew what was in it. “Mr. Layton says Baker’s last report all good but one small discrepancy to check heard no more after that hope you and Phoebe are getting along”.

  He cleared his throat. Maybe he shouldn’t have read out that last part.

  “So who’s Mr. Layton?” James repeated.

  “He’s Ralph Baker’s boss,” Phoebe said.

  James walked up to Jonah and snatched the telegram from his hands, studying it. “You think someone killed Mr. Baker?”

  Jonah took the telegram back. “We don’t know yet. Thanks for bringing this.” He dug fifty cents from his pocket and handed it over. “You can go now.”

  James pocketed the money. “Anything else you need? I can help you investigate.”

  Jonah shook his head firmly. The last thing he needed was the boy getting in the way and putting himself and them in danger. “No. Investigating crimes is a serious business.”

  James frowned. “I can be serious.”

  “That’s not the point. You’re not an adult, let alone a trained agent. You…”

  Phoebe cut him off. “You’ve been very helpful so far, James. If we have anything else for you to do, we’ll come and find you.”

  James touched his cap. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be ready.”

  Jonah herded him from the room and made sure he left before returning to Phoebe.

  “You didn’t have to be harsh with him,” she said as soon as he walked in. “He’s just a child.”

  “I don’t want him involved, in case it’s dangerous. And he’s got to be at least fourteen.”

  “That’s still a child. You could have been a bit less abrupt.”

  He didn’t reply. Maybe she was right, but it wasn’t his job to deal with children. They were too unpredictable.

  She smiled. “You just haven’t gotten over him thinking you’re sixty.”

  He spun to face her. “Do I look sixty?” He waved a hand at his body. “Does this look sixty?”

  Not that she was right about him not having gotten over it.

  She pressed her lips together, which only had the effect of redirecting her laughter through her nose. “Oh no, you’ve clearly completely let it go.”